100 LIGHTS PER FOOT OF TREE

1. . . . That's what the experts say about lights on a Christmas tree. I don't know about you but I've got so many plugs plugging into other plugs from strands of lights that the connection sticks out of the wall socket by about a foot.
2. A friend of mine said got his mother a "pastina" scarf for Christmas. The dope meant pashmina.
3. They're still advertising Elizabeth Taylor's Forever Elizabeth perfume on TV. Those ads are old. She hasn't looked like that in 20 years.
4. Oprah said her trip to Africa was the "moment" that changed her life. Every moment changes her life.
5. ABC7's Greta Creuz doesn't like gum smackers but she does like Sean P Diddy Combs. She said those things last week while she was subbing for Andrea McCarren on Good Morning Washington. The first was a reaction to a piece that ran about rude people traveling. Puff Daddy's comment came after a story about him going to Broadway to star in A Raisin in the Sun. He gets everything.
6. JUST ASKING. The New York Times had an article last week about musicians protesting media monopolies and it was bylined, Jennifer 8. Lee. Is her middle name 8? Was it a typo?
7. They made fun of young singer John Mayer on Saturday Night Live last week. One of the regulars imitated him with a lazy mouth singing, "Blah, blah, blah. Well that's what he sounds like.
8. Happy Hanukkah or Happy Hanukah or Happy Chanukah.
9. My nephew wants a drum set for Christmas because wants to start up a band and he's got a name for it: Frown. Not bad, huh?
10. I still think Dick Gephardt sounds like John Wayne.
11. Fox News Sunday has a slow rotating Fox News Sunday logo box on the lower left of the TV screen. Then there's a burnt in, see-through FOX logo that's on the lower right but that doesn't move.. And when they have a guest and put him/her in a box, the wallpaper background moves. So they've got a living, breathing show, I guess.
12. Did we have to dredge up Chris Darden again from the O.J. trial? God, is he boring. He's been hired as an analyst for the Michael Jackson case by CNN. He's aged a bit, got gray specks in his beard and his face look fuller. Oh, and Marcia Clark is an analyst for Entertainment Tonight. Everybody's in the business. She's got a little chicken neck goin' on.
13. I don't think that's James Earl Jones doing all the dancing on that Verizon commercial to Ain't No Stopping Us Now (McFadden & Whitehead, 1979). That's him close up, but the guy who's really moving his feet and body don't quite match up. At least by my standards.
14. . . . Your standards? Who in the h_ _ are you?
15. The felony complaint against Michael Jackson that was filed in Santa Barbara County in California lists his middle name as Joe. Didn't know that. Named after the old man, I guess.
16. I wanna be an audience member on the Ellen (DeGenerous show). Everyday she gives away good stuff: CDs, compact stereo systems, books. It's sort of shameless promotion. She obviously has to mention the company (Brookstone, for example) so they get some free advertising. But I guess it's okay.
17. ANDREA KOPPEL. (CNN) Long hair (which it is right now) or short? You decide.
18. Who's the next celebrity who'll lose a lot of weight? I say American Idol Ruben Studdard.
19. Is it true that the body loses 21 Grams the minute it dies and that it's the soul leaving? It's a debated point. It's also the title of a movie that deals with different kinds of loss.
20. They were singing Rudolph the Red Line Reindeer one day last week when a real deer got on the tracks of Washington's Metro.
21. Mr. Big Stuff spouted a good headline for the capture of Saddam Hussein: "Ace in the Hole."
22. "Winona Ryder entered court in a newsboy cap," noted Entertainment Tonight anchor Bob Goen. Yeah, I guess she did look like that.
23. Why does David Letterman always wear white socks with his shoes? He looks like he's got spats on, for crissakes.
24. "Come back to me. Come back to Cold Mountain," says Nicole Kidman in the ad running on TV for the movie which opens Christmas day. She sounds country. I like the way she says it.
25. Doug Buchanan (Mike Buchanan's son) of WUSA in Washington said, "Saddam was a good get." That's about right, in TV parlance.
26. Joy Behar of The View had this to say about Saddam's hideout: "That little hole in the ground would go for about $300,000 on the Upper West Side." Ha Ha Ha.
27. Mike Cerre does some great reporting for ABC over in Iraq. He was in Tikrit and climbed down the Saddam hole and he's done excellent pieces all over that place. He's from ABC Radio. Doing double duty I guess.
28. Bernard Shaw came back to CNN last week to be a guest on one of Wolf Blitzer's shows in a segment called A Reporter's Notebook. (Shaw once interviewed Saddam Hussein.) Shaw said, "He (Saddam) was alone - that's how he was able to survive."
29. Saddam was a sloppy housekeeper. He needed Mr. Clean.
30. Crossfire's Tucker Carlson was in Baghdad last week for CNN. There he was with an opened-at -the-neck green checked shirt, his hair sort of windswept back and no bowtie. He was talking with James Carville back in D.C. They even almost started arguing on the international two-way satellite feed.
31. . . . And there was NBC's Richard Engel, boldly walking right up to the camera in Tikrit, talking about the capture of Saddam. We know he likes to walk a lot.
32. . . . Tucker looked better.
33. Saddam looked like my father used to look when he got up in the morning.
34. Former secretary of state William Cohen said Saddam looked like a vagrant and down and out in Beverly Hills.
35. Hanalie, dog in the neighborhood, is jetting off to San Francisco where owner Sally is visiting her father for the holidays. Sally gave her a tranquilizer so she'd be calm for the flight. She zoned out pretty fast.
36. I ACTUALLY SAW HIM. Bruce Morton, who's rarely seen on-camera at CNN and narrates a lot of news pieces, did a report on campaign finance reform. I remember when he was with CBS - for many years.
37. When Valerie Bertinelli was real popular, did she have a mullet?
38. SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE. The Jack Nicholson-Diane Keaton movie. Excellent. She really acts - and in a natural way - and Jack plays things cool and it's not just another Jack Nicholson Jerk flick. Amanda Peet's good and Keanu Reeves is okay as a doctor. Frances McDormand seems out of place to me though.
39. My mother feels like smashing the TV set in when she sees that Mark Geragos lawyer on. He's the one defending Michael Jackson. She thinks he acts too sure of himself and that he's too loud.
40. PRETTY SHOCKING . . . That the lead guy in Angels in America - Justin Kirk who played Prior Walker, the one with AIDS - and Emma Thompson, who played three roles, one of which was the angel, did not win Golden Globe nominations. All the other main actors did. What was wrong with them?
41. Now they're making Hummer limos. Saw one the other night outside the Washington Palm restaurant and it took up a block. How much do those things cost?
42. UH . . . Don't Cost You Nothing - Ashford & Simpson on Warner. 1978. Wish they'd record something new. I miss 'em.

rocci@roccifisch.com

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